With local elections just days away, you won't catch me anywhere near  a ballot paper, but if the honorable Mr Benji Webbe ran for the Ragga party, he'd get my vote and I'm sure many others too...

An extremely youthful and rammed congregation greets us as we enter, just in time as it happens, as the lights dim for Blackpool's pop-punkish Me Vs Hero, straight from the off the guys seem happy to be in town, beating the opening band sound hoodoo with their pleasurable screamadelica and emotionally charged tunes ,vocalist Sam maybe drops a slight clanger when he refers to this show as "Benji and the boys homecoming show"...well close enough. Certainly making the most of the limited stage space whipping the crowd up into an early frenzy and chants on 'We're Not Going Home' even successfully guiding the enthusiastic mosh-pit to group together for a human pyramid, potential here me thinks, and no time for a softmint just yet.

Sandwiched in on this tri nation tour comes Michigan post-hardcore (so they say) rockers Chiodos, here to promote their 2010 release 'Illuminaudio'. Guitarist Jason Hale takes to the stage with wettened hair and his customary barefooted appearance, a statement indeed, With some decent fretwork mixed in with the keyboards from Bradley Bell to give it a slight classical vibe, but only very slight, newish singer/frontman Brandon Bolmer gets down with his own little groove moments on little charmers like 'Is It Progression If A Cannibal Uses A Fork'. Interesting stuff indeed.

Here we go...as the ITV News theme intro rolls, the cheers greet the headliners entrance, but the cheers get deafening as Benji Webbe walks on complete with red top hat and a silver glittery suit. 'Bruises' sets it off and there is so much belief and intensity and no nonsense welsh banter between songs, Skindred ain't gonna be taking no prisoners tonight for sure.  After some difficult times the ragga-metal quintet are on top of their game at the moment as one of the UK's finest bands, Benji's movements acting like a remote control to this almost transfixed audience, slipping in a few lines of 'What's New Pussycat' mid set one welsh legend sings another.

A couple of bars of 'Sad But True' and little bits of Tinie Tempah and Rihanna are also scattered throughout the set, but it is the bands material that stands strong here from the instantly likable 'Doom Riff' lifted off the spanking new 'Union Black' opus through to tracks like 'Selector' or 'Rat Race' or even 'Destroy The Dancefloor', this is highly charged Ragga Metal at its best.  Set closing anthem 'Nobody' rocking the joint so hard I'm sure the 'Diff must have registered on the richter scale when that phat tune kicked in.

"Anyone want a T-shirt" (hands up everywhere and loud "me,me ,me's" fill the air)..."£15 on the way out mun".....something about that lovable Newport accent.

'Stand For Something' 'Pressure' and 'Warning' complete with guest vocals from Revoker's Jamie Mathias round things off tonight in feverish circumstances.

Whoever said live music is dead........obviously hasn't seen Skindred................